Tyrese Haliburton’s Dad on Giannis Antetokounmpo Incident: ‘We Said We Loved Each Other’

Tyrese Haliburton's father, John Haliburton, denied that he made "disrespectful" comments to Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo.

In an interview with TMJ4's Rod Burks, John spoke about the tense altercation between him and Giannis following the Indiana Pacers' victory this week. "Going out on the court, that was wrong," he said. "I should have found a way to restrain myself, but I was in the moment." He clarified that he didn't intend to wave a towel with his son's face on it to brag to Giannis, but he did have it thrown to the ground by a security guard. In fact, he said he was "looking through" Giannis in the moment.

"When I was off the court, he put his hands on me. I'm not saying that he did it in a hostile way,” John said. “He reached out, he grabbed my hands. He put his forehead on my forehead, and he proceeded to say what he said to me, and that was, ‘don't you ever fucking disrespect me again.’”

John went on to explain that he told Giannis he wasn't trying to antagonize him, but he said he ended their interaction amicably. "I said, 'I love you.' He said back to me, 'I love you,'" John continued. "We patted chest, he gave us a thumbs up, and he walked away. They won't show that on social media, right? You know, they're only showing that they think that he was so upset, that we wanted to fight."

Asked why they pressed their heads against each other during the tense moment, he said it was to stop people from reading their lips.

"When he came, his head, he brought his head close to me because he wanted to talk to me, you know, close up, so social media could not read his lips," he said. "So that's why he did that." In a postgame interview, Giannis spoke about the moment and alleged that Tyrese's father yelled "this is what we fucking do" while waving a towel with his son on it.

"It upset me because it was a lie, right?" said John. "I never said that to him. I do not swear. You can't do anything to me to make me swear. You understand, right? Listen, I do not do that, right? ... We're in a good place." After the incident went viral, John Haliburton issued an apology for his actions and said he will "not make that mistake again."

John added that "We said we loved each other, just like he said in his press conference, we got our understanding. We good."

Watch the interview with John Haliburton up top.